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In honor of the memory of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. and the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Languages, this talk highlights the place of attitudes towards indigenous languages in the formation and reproduction of the human rights violations seen in recent events involving Central American immigrants seeking refuge in the United States. In 2018, two children died in the Border Patrol custody and a Border Patrol agent shot a young woman in the head. All three were native speakers of indigenous (Mayan) languages from Guatemala. The talk will first outline the history and current state of the issues behind the current immigration by Guatemalan Maya. The central role of language in the creation and current perpetuation of human rights violations will focus on two related factors. The first issue is that of language access. The denial of language access is sustained through negative attitudes towards indigenous languages and the persistent myth of the “desperate need” for indigenous interpreters. The second major issue is the failure to recognize or legitimize indigenous traditions of language use needed in the interpreting context. These include the conventions for holding a conversation, expectations for who should speak in what context, and forms of politeness. Consideration of these issues suggests that equality for indigenous peoples will never be achieved unless we first come to recognize and respect the languages they speak.

The Central Kentucky Linguistics Conference (CKLiC) is an annual springtime conference hosted by the University of Kentucky Department of Linguistics. It provides a place for graduate students in linguistics to engage in professional development, as well as showcase their own work in a full conference environment.

The Central Kentucky Linguistics Conference (CKLiC) is an annual springtime conference hosted by the University of Kentucky Department of Linguistics. It provides a place for graduate students in linguistics to engage in professional development, as well as showcase their own work in a full conference environment.

Sociolinguists, long concerned with the connections between language and localness, have shown that the ways in which speakers use features of ethnoracially or locally marked varieties are highly salient in their construction of identities of place. In the urban U.S., place identity is enmeshed with identities of class and identities of race: to be from a place is to embody its racial makeup and class delineations just as much as its physical locale.

This present study combines quantitative analysis and discourse analysis to analyze the speech of middle- and upper-class African American residents of a rapidly-gentrifying neighborhood in Washington, D.C. The data show that drawing upon an ethnolinguistic repertoire (Benor 2010) which combines features of African American English style as well as features of prestige white varieties of English allows speakers to reinforce racial identities which align them with the neighborhood's rich African American identity even while their class identity might better align them with the outsiders. Ultimately, I argue that the linguistic expression of class and place identity is not an add-on to the enactment of racial identities, but that language is in fact the primary site wherein these intersecting identities are negotiated.

In March 1965, after the bloody march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a sermon entitled, "Our God is Marching On!" This is political discourse trying to affect change in racial understanding towards greater equality while using religious themes and oratorical styles found in the pulpit. In this lecture by Dr. Hilaria Cruz, there will be comparisons on theme, repetition and parallelism to the political discourse found in San Juan Quiahije, Oaxaca, Mexico. Here in this remote place another racial minority to the greater Mexican society strives for equality using religion in political discourse.

An event in honor of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. sponsored by the UK Department of Linguistics

There has been a Chinese population in Cambodia for more than 500 years and contact with Cambodia was first mentioned by the eminent China emissary Zhou Daguan as early as 1296 during his travels there. Despite a relatively high degree of integration into to the majority Cambodia culture, ethnic Chinese have maintained their own social organizations, news media, and schools. The Cambodian Chinese population is organized around five Huiguan (会馆) ‘congregations’ corresponding to the southern-origin Chinese groups that comprise it: Chaozhou 潮州会馆, Cantonese 广肇会馆，Hakka 客属会馆, Fujian 福建会馆, and Hainan 海南会馆. Until the Khmer Rouge forced closure of Chinese schools in the mid seventies, the language of Chinese education followed the dialects of each association. However, in recent times Mandarin has become the lingua franca of the Sino-Cambodia community, though among ethnic Chinese there are few if any native speakers of Mandarin.

Through examination of survey data and recorded interviews, this presentation sketches a picture of the contemporary Chinese community in Cambodian and outlines some of the language change occurring by contact with the majority Khmer langauge. The paper gives special attention to examples from the local Cantonese.

This Wednesday, Andrew and Brenna Byrd will explain in detail their incredible journey back in time with Ubisoft's game "Far Cry: Primal." They will describe the process of creating two entire languages based off of Indo-European, how they trained the actors and worked with the directors and writers off and on set, and what they hope this exposure means for the field of historical linguistics. Additionally, there will be a short lesson in Wenja (the main language of the game), a scene reenactment with two talented theater students to show the filming process, and two copies of the game to raffle off to attendees.